The Word for Today

I have dropped one pant size, and my favorite pre-pregnancy shirt fits again! Thanks, Rhythmball!

VBS is over and Malan is gone...

Friday, beautiful Friday. The heat is breaking and we're supposed to have some rain this weekend. In other nature news, the bad-ass spider who lives in the space between my window and the screen has added a moth to his already impressive trophy web. He bagged a wasp the other day, which was more gripping than Boa vs. Python, though I felt the battle lacked the humanity of, say, Alien vs. Predator.

Last day of Vacation Bible School, it was, and t'was joyfully endured. Tough keeping tabs on two groups -- 11 fourth graders in one and your now-eight-month-old son in the other. The fourth graders were lovely, really no trouble at all, and quite sweet. Baby's final VBS Nursery feat involved pulling himself up to standing so he could play with a table-top toy. A whole new galaxy of childproofing is opening before me. Yikes.

After waiting two months, the Jake Shimabukuro CD I requested from the Neighboring Library -- "Dragon" -- arrived so I picked it up right before the Mytown Playwrights Lab presentation of my newly revised two-act comedy, "The Wash-n-Dry Laundromat and Uncensored Internet Salon of Salt Lake City, Utah." Or maybe just "Wash-N-Dry." (I think the first one's funnier.) It was a hit! The lab member I wasn't getting any love out of during the reading? When it came time to critique, he not only defended me against another critiquer by invoking my play's structural commonalities with Bertolt Brecht, but summed up with, "if it were funnier you'd have a little Woody Allen movie." So on to draft four, and writing funnier-er.

Gone like VBS is Malan from "Project Runway." He always seemed so creepy and then after hearing, "you're out," he turned all vulnerable outsider on us. Which makes me sorry he's going. Jeffrey is still in it, and I'm dying to write an estranged friend from forever about his opinions on Jeffrey's professional comeback after mental health issues, but I'm afraid Jeffrey's meltdown is going to be spectacular so I'm kind of waiting to see how Jeffrey fares before making any suggestions. There will always be the DVD release of Season Three, maybe just before Christmas?

I also want to ask Matt Roloff what he and his think of the new Burger King ad campaign. I don't know why BK went with miniaturized little people. Wouldn't miniaturized tall people better convey the bigness of the new BK stackable burgers? Isn't making the characters little people just... gratuitous? And, well, stupid?

Sometimes I just shake my head and then I sit down to blog.

They took a bunch of pictures of me playing Rhythmball with VBS kids. Yowza. It's time to get some non-maternity clothes -- mine, they're too big! While it's true that I thought I look better than I actually do -- never a comfortable feeling -- my shirts balloon from where my body stops, which I'm interpreting as a good thing.

Now if some of my tomato blossoms would just turn into baby tomatoes, I'd be freakin' set.

And Rhythmball is about to get its first press! It's super fun. And those who know me know that if there's one thing I know, people, it's Super Fun. So buy one, already.

Matt Roloff, Project Runway, Jake Shimabukuro, Rhythmball

How it's Going

This week I've been helping out at our church's Vacation Bible School (VBS). I've done this for many years in many churches throughout the nation, and I have hit upon a Universal Truth thereof: Vacation Bible School always falls on the hottest week of the year. It never fails.

So I pack up the baby at 8:00 every morning and we toddle down to church, where he gets to play in the nursery and I get to watch first nine, then 10, and now 11 third and fourth graders. I'm only the assistant, but I still get the perks -- today three kids gifted me with their art projects.

You might think that the heat and the VBS has thrown off my Rhythmball schedule. You couldn't be further from the truth. I took my paddles and balls and taught a couple of the kids to play during snack time yesterday. The kids did OK but our head teacher really picked it up. Last night Darling Husband was out so I cleared the family room of all the baby detritus and practiced right- and left-handed Rhythmball technique. Turns out I've been holding the racquet incorrectly, so I need to relearn how to do that (you keep your palm empty, gripping the racket in a pinch between thumb and index finger, and then your other fingers follow down from that). The new grip is foreign but it REALLY helps with the range-of-motion, so I'll stick with it. I did more than 100 stomach crunches, including some lateral crunches and double crunches (ouch!), and some push ups. It was a great way to watch "Veronica Mars," which I'm trying to get into but there are too many characters and way too many plotlines.

My water intake has gone insane with the heat -- I'm drinking at least two liters a day, sometimes three. I've been at it for a couple of weeks now and it's making a huge difference in my skin's clarity. Glad something is!